


The Crownless Again Shall be King

by daphnerunning



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnerunning/pseuds/daphnerunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My contribution to Team Mibuchi for the Character Battle at BPS. Team Mibuchi always glorious, always victorious! A collection of drabbles, AUs, prompts, challenges, etc, all centered around Mibuchi Reo (and usually Akashi as well).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crownless Again Shall be King

**Challenge: Weight**

Sometimes, Reo wonders how exactly one goes about being a Miracle.

He watches all of their games. Some of the others don’t. They say it’s just a fluke, that there’s no way these gawky brats can defeat the legendary Five Kings that had risen last year.

More than any of them, Reo watches the five brightly-colored dots flit about on the basketball court, some brighter than others. He draws his knees up to the bench below, resting his elbows on long legs, and rests his chin on his hands. 

More than any of them, he can feel the weight of their old titles lifting from his head. Kotarou says he’s being dramatic, but Kotarou likes the acclaim of being the best more than he likes tearing his enemies down and defeating them. He can’t bear the thought of being defeated, and sulks for days when it happens. 

Reo knows it will happen. Someday, he’ll be unlucky enough that his team will go up against Teikou, and he’ll fall. He watches Kiyoshi, tall and broad and so confident, smacked down by that odd gangly giant. Nebuya gets tripped up by shots he can’t block, arcing through the air in a high, perfect semicircle. Hanamiya claims he can score any time he wants, but Teikou’s ace breezes past him with agility none of them have ever seen.

Reo steeples his fingers, eyes flitting from color to color, before settling on the point guard. _That one._

_I want that one to tear off my crown._

 

**Challenge: Playboy**

Reo is a total playboy.

At least, Akashi thinks he is. He’s heard Ryouta and Satsuki talking about such frivolous things in the past, but can’t think of anything that has ever applied to him less. He remembers it vaguely, hearing Kise suffer accusations of such when he’d talked to girls, flirted with them, sometimes more than one in the same period between classes.

Classless. Tasteless.

And sometimes, Reo does the same thing. He smiles at women, offers to carry their things, tells them they’re lovely, and gives them bows that are too deep, which of course Akashi finds preposterous. There’s no reason to give such validation to those that have done nothing to earn it.

“You’re a playboy, Reo.”

He expects some surprise or indignant sputtering at the accusation, but none of those materialize. Reo laughs instead, leaning over and tousling his hair. “Jealous, Sei-chan?”

Akashi’s withering glare doesn’t phase Reo in the slightest, which he hates. 

He _definitely_ doesn’t like it.

 

 

**Challenge: Reach**

“Get that for me.” 

Reo likes going places with Akashi, mostly. He does force a smile now, because Akashi has been a little...demanding, as of the last few hours.

“Sei-chan,” he says patiently, “I don’t mind opening doors for you. I like buying you things, because it makes me happy, even though I’m pretty sure your family owns this amusement park. I don’t even mind holding your school bag for you while you stop to play shogi at every single table along the walk. But _why_ can’t you just get your own jar of candy?”

Akashi blinks up at him, slow and deliberate. “I can’t reach.”

Reo’s irritation vanishes in an instant, and he tries not to faint. “Sei-chan is so charmingly tiny! Ahh, I can’t take it!”

“I’ve changed my mind. Reo, fetch me a stepladder.”

“No, I’m getting you the candy!”

“Denied.”

 

**Challenge: Dance (Temple Guard AU)**

It isn’t the easiest thing in the world to keep his eyes off of the young man.

He’s nobility, Reo’s pretty sure. He moves like nobility, every arch of a single fingertip elegant in its artistry, and Reo can’t remember ever seeing a Kami-Mai done with such dignity, intensity, or grace. It’s artistry in every movement, and he knows he’s long since abandoned the stone-face posture he’s meant to hold as a temple guard.

Still, he can’t help himself. The young man’s feet slide gently across the stage, and if he hadn’t been close enough to hear, he’d have been convinced that he wasn’t touching the ground at all. He seems to float, weightless and graced, until finally the music stops and he comes to the most complete stillness Reo has ever seen.

Then he takes off the mask, and the intensity of those red-gold eyes meet his. They threaten to tear right through him, if he’s not careful.

He’s never been too fond of being careful.

**Challenge: Moon (Temple Guard AU)**

Akashi Seijuurou is like the moon, and Reo is jealous of even the tides.

He isn’t a very good temple guard, not after the first time he sees the young master dance. On the days he comes to the shrine, Reo thinks sometimes that he knows, and requests an escort to torture him more than he does to defend himself against slowly falling leaves. 

“Do you pray, sir?” the young man asks, his voice clear, intent one day. He sits in seiza, arranging a puzzle Reo can’t even make out, his eyes focused intimately on every movement.

“Yes, milord,” Reo says easily.

“Hm. For victory, over the Hosokawa?”

“For your safety.”

Akashi Seijuurou is the son of a daimyo, but that doesn’t mean he’ll never go to war. Reo cleans his unused armor daily, and even if it’s sized for a child, he has no doubt that it will not go through life unblemished.

For a brief moment, something flickers in the young man’s eyes--gratitude? Surprise? He’s hard to read. Akashi raises his face, and looks him full in the face, a more intimate form of contact than they’ve ever had. “Stay by me tonight. Keep me safe.”

Akashi Seijuurou is the moon, and even the tides must be jealous of Reo tonight.

 

**Challenge: Unrivaled (Temple Guard AU)**

For all that Mibuchi has watched him train for years, it’s still something of a surprise to see Akashi in action.

The Hosokawa don’t expect it. Mibuchi is something of a deserter now, leaving his post, but he couldn’t handle the idea that their young daimyo would ride off with his men, defending Kyoto from the Hosokawa only to fall on the bloody plains.

So he’d snuck along, intending to protect his young lord, only to watch open-mouthed as the elegant young man fells three samurai with a sweep of his sword. More come at him, shining in unblemished armor, and fall to his swift, flawless movements.

Mibuchi is no help to him, following only to stare in stunned, reverent silence. The field is won, and for another day, their homes remain unburnt, their cities unrazed. 

When the battle is finished, he finds Akashi bathing his sword in a pool, causing no harm to the koi swimming around the blade. “I trained for a long time, in my youth,” the young man says, eyes glinting as if he knows Mibuchi is there, even if he hasn’t revealed himself. “My companions form those days...they all serve different daimyo now, but we were once quite feared. I was supposed to meet one of them on the field today. I suspect he stayed away out of fear.”

“ _I_ wouldn’t want to face you.”

“No,” Akashi says thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t either.”

 

**Challenge: Grief**

When Mibuchi’s father dies, he doesn’t expect Akashi to show up.

Akashi surprises him most of the time, but this one is a good surprise. He’s not exactly sweet, but he does wear proper white clothing to the funeral, ignoring the sea of less-traditional black Western suits. He watches Mibuchi the whole time he speaks, and doesn’t give him the time alone that everyone else seems to think he needs.

“I’m not sure what to say,” Akashi says, staring at the shrine by his side, after most of the mourners have processed away down the street. “I keep trying to think of what I should say, and I don’t know, so I’m not saying anything.”

Mibuchi shrugs. “It’s not important. I know you care. I don’t want you to say anything you wouldn’t mean.”

“But I wouldn’t do that. I just mean...you seem sad.” Frankly, he continues, “I think I’d be more relieved than anything, personally.”

Mibuchi’s words die in his throat. He can’t imagine feeling that way, and knows from his expression that Akashi can tell he’s made some kind of error. 

“If it helps,” he says, looking up into Mibuchi’s eyes with his own odd, mismatched ones, “I would be most distressed if you died. Please don’t.”

He’s not going to say that hearing that makes the whole day better, but the sun can come out even in stormy weather.

 

**Challenge: Contagious**

“I,” Akashi says firmly, “am not sick. I do not get sick. I am—”

He breaks off to sneeze explosively, his eyes watering, nose running halfway down his face before he weakly mutters, “Absolute.”

“Yes, yes, of course you are,” Mibuchi says with all the conciliatory gentleness he can muster. “But you have to get absolutely better, so you have to take absolutely _all_ of your medicine.”

“Reo.”

“Hmm, yes, Sei-chan?”

“I know you’re trying to make me feel better.”

“Of course! Where would we be without our beloved first-year Captain?”

“And I know you’re being quite generous to come over and spend time with me.”

“I couldn’t do anything less for my cherished Sei-chan!”

“But, Reo.”

“Yes?”

“Is the nurse’s outfit _absolutely_ necessary?”

Reo beams, bending over deliberately to pick up a pill that he hadn’t even bothered to drop yet. “It’s all part of the healing process.”

“I don’t see it.”

“You’re delirious with fever. Go to sleep.”

 

**Challenge: Serious**

Reo is joking, of course.

It isn’t really that he wants to do anything terrible to the lovely Shuutoku point guard. There’s a looming orange-and-green wall behind the boy that says that’s a bad idea anyway, and Reo only likes flirting with danger sometimes. So he’s joking when he sidles up to Takao Kazunari, turns on the charm, puts himself _just so_ in the path of the first year’s feet.

If it just so happens that Takao winds up in full contact with him, making that frustrated face, that’s an extra bonus, but Reo isn’t _doing_ anything to him. It’s nothing serious, just playfulness. They’re playing a game, aren’t they?

(But if Akashi weren’t looking, Reo isn’t sure he’d want to turn down the pretty little point guard making those frustrated, determined faces all night.)

It’s a good thing he’s only joking, or this could get _serious._

 

**Challenge: One**

“Reo.”

Mibuchi looks up, shielding his eyes from the sun as Akashi stands over him. He looks slightly put out about something, arms folded in front of his chest as he looks over Rakuzan’s grounds. “Get up.”

Reo stands, stretching out his arms over his head, looking around to see if the rest of the team had caught him napping on the bleachers. Apparently not. “Sorry, I had a late night last—”

“I want one kiss.”

The words are soft and deliberate, and if Mibuchi hadn’t been _sure_ he was listening, he’d have thought he’d heard wrong. 

Akashi scowls up at him, obviously about to take it back if Mibuchi so much as asks for clarification, but there’s no danger of that. His face lights up, and he bends obediently, cupping Akashi’s face in his hands to give him a slow, sweet kiss.

And maybe _one_ more.

And…

“Get off me, you disobedient cur! I said one, not--mmph!”

“Sei-chan is so cute when he’s angry!”

“I’m never asking you for kisses again, you get too invested!”

“One more, just one more! Sei-chan is breaking Big Sister’s heart!”

“Good! Die from it! My will is absolute!”

 

**Challenge: Help**

It’s a while before Reo realizes what’s going on with Akashi.

At exam time, their captain is stricter than usual. He makes certain to go over every schedule with each of them, asking questions about whether they’re _sure_ they’re prepared, whether they’re _sure_ they’re going to pass.

_He must have helped them so much, back in Teikou._

Akashi is too cute, and Reo in particular doesn’t mind gleefully handing over his homework, displaying it with a gusto that he’d usually save for something truly interesting. “Here you go, Captain!”

“We’re not kids,” Kotarou mutters rebelliously. “Only fucking children need their captain to look at their test scores. We all got into high school-- _ow_.”

“Now, now,” Reo says serenely, as Kotarou rubs the place on the back of the head where Reo had hit him. “If Sei-chan wants to check our work, Sei-chan can check our work. It’s charming that he’s looking out for us. And don’t use such vulgar language, Sei-chan’s virgin ears are nearby.”

Akashi’s glance is startled, wary, and Reo isn’t sure whether it’s grateful or not.

Reo just beams. If he’s not grateful now, he will be. Or not. Sei-chan is mysterious in his cruelty.

 

**Challenge: Big Sister**

It’s senior girls.

It’s _always_ senior girls.

They’re the ones who sneak into the dressing rooms to take pictures of Akashi, they’re the ones who tag him home, they’re the ones who sit too close to him and assure him that Big Sister knows all about sports, it’s so _cute_ that he plays basketball, has his skin always been so pale?

They know _nothing_ about being Big Sister. They will learn.

“I’m so sorry,” Reo says, feigning concern when the expensive digital camera hits the ground--and then his foot comes down, smashing it to pieces. Serves them right for whispering that there’s _definitely_ footage of Akashi undressing in the locker room on it. Maybe it’s a _little_ weird that he’s tailing them, but how else is he going to make sure Akashi is protected? 

“Here, let me pay for that.” It’s no big thing to pull out a couple 10,000 yen bills, pressing it into the stunned girl’s hand. “I’m all clumsy fingers today, please forgive me! I’d leave soon, though,” he adds, sidling closer to Akashi, his eyes narrowing. “Who knows what could happen next, with my clumsy fingers?”

They run, and Akashi stares up at him. “That was unnecessary. You don’t have to protect me. I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself, and I don’t care what pictures they have.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What point?”

_That no one has ever protected you before because they liked you, not because you ordered them to._

Reo bends down and presses a kiss to Akashi’s forehead, watching it wrinkle in confusion. “No one is allowed to be your pervy Big Sister but me.”

“Sexual Harassment.”

“So mean, Sei-chan!”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you take the memory card out of her camera.”

“You said you didn’t care!”

“Creepy.”

“Too rude!”

“Creepy.”

 

 

**Challenge: Other**

Sometimes, Mibuchi misses the idea of women.

Not women themselves, necessarily. He sees plenty of them, and they don’t have all _that_ much to say that’s any better than what he hears at home.

He misses, sometimes, the idea of what his life had been supposed to be. He misses the idea of the woman he’d always thought he’d marry, a girl with a perfect little gasp and laughing eyes who wouldn’t mind being swept off her feet now and then, who’d get jealous of other women and drag him to her mother’s house for soba on New Year’s.

He doesn’t argue about the grocery budget, because Akashi lets him do all the shopping as long as he brings home enough tofu to bury a small army, and they have the money to buy the damn store anyway. He doesn’t wheedle a wife into letting him go out with his friends, because Akashi is his best friend and his lover and goes with him anyway. He doesn’t get dragged to anyone’s house for New Year’s because they’re homos and no one’s family really wants to deal with that, so they have their own, more fabulous New Year’s party, and Akashi hides in a corner playing shogi with Midorima.

And Mibuchi is happy, but sometimes he misses the idea of the life he was supposed to lead. No one in breakfast food commercials looks like their family, and as much as he likes gossiping with the women at the supermarket, sometimes he’s sure he was supposed to be the one chiding his wife for gossiping, in a life he’d chosen not to live.

And then Akashi tells him his boiled tofu has reached perfection, and if that’s enough to make his heart thud, it really couldn’t have been any other way.

 

**Challenge: Drunk**

 

Mibuchi had expected Akashi to be a cruel drunk. Perhaps he’d be a controlling drunk, or an angry drunk, and honestly, as long as Kotarou is around to take the brunt of that aggression, Mibuchi is pretty sure that’s hilarious.

Instead, Akashi squirms up to his side, eyes shut resolutely until the world stops spinning. “You,” he says very seriously, nudging his head under Mibuchi’s arm to bury his face in the taller boy’s side, “are warm. Very warm. Furnace. Keeps.”

“Keeps?” Mibuchi asks, trying not to faint from just how _cute_ he is.

“Yeah. Keeps you.”

Nebuya narrows his eyes, all ruddy cheeks and swaying balance. “Is he gonna be like this every time?”

“Hope not,” Kotarou grunts. “Reo-nee is gonna pass out from all the blood going south.”

They’ll all die soon, Mibuchi promises himself. Just as soon as Akashi stops being QUITE so charming.

 

 

**Challenge: First TIme**

He’s fifteen, and she’s his biggest fan.

It isn’t like there _aren’t_ girls clamoring to get to know the starters. It’s about a week after he makes first string on the legendary Emperor of Creation, and there’s been a girl watching him from the stands with shining eyes at every game.

She’s sweet, and blushes when he gives her his jersey to wear in the cool air. She’s the kind of girl he wants, he thinks, even if he can’t remember if her name is Haruka or Honoka half the time.

Her eyes are shining, even though they’re nervous, when he goes over to her apartment to help with homework. He has to wait until she’s already in, and make sure not to be seen entering or leaving the building. Single men alone (he’s tall enough to be thought a man, even at fifteen) are not to be trusted. 

She’s made onigiri while waiting for him, and apologizes for being messy, for being not good enough, for being a bad cook. Mibuchi wonders why he feels like such a bad person around her, and thinks that it’s probably how she looks at him like he’s about to take something from her.

She’s nervous, but she seems determined, and Mibuchi has a feeling he’s part of a plan she’s had for a while. She asks him if he wants to watch anime, and offers him the choice of One Piece or an ecchi series with shaking hands. 

Nothing he says reassures her, but she reaches for his hand and puts it on her chest anyway, looking away and blushing because that’s what she’s supposed to do, even though she’s holding his hand with an iron grip. It mostly feels like a push-up bra, but Mibuchi’s cock gives a twitch anyway. He’s not really in a position to judge the quality of breasts.

She’s got a plan, and shimmies her panties down and her skirt up, only bothering to yank him (kind of painfully) out of his pants before lying back on the couch. He knows he’s part of a plan when she pulls out a Hello Kitty condom, handing it to him like he knows what to do with it. 

He learns. Somehow, his hands don’t shake too badly.

He hesitates. “Don’t you want to wait?” he asks, smiling and brushing the hair out of her face. “A pretty girl like you, we could go to the beach for the weekend, get a hotel looking over the ocean, I’d buy you flowers and candy and feed you until your belly stuck out.”

He’s trying to make her blush and giggle, and it usually works. He likes her laugh, but it’s hard to argue when she grabs between his legs, insistent.

At least she doesn’t cry. After he’s done (he’s not sure if she’s done or not, and it seems rude to ask...right?), she grabs for her cell phone, texting her friends. “Yes,” she mutters, grabbing him close for a smile and a peace sign photo, “I wasn’t the last one.”

The first time makes him feel sticky and awkward, flushed and nervous and all kinds of sick, but the second time is better, even though Honoka or Haruka isn’t around. Mibuchi likes older girls, he finds. He likes the way they kiss his cheeks and jump into his arms expecting him to catch them, and he likes the lipstick marks they leave on his neck. 

He gets something of a reputation of a ladies’ man, and can’t say that it’s entirely wrong, if only because no one else on Rakuzan can talk to a woman to save their lives. Sex is something fun, a weekend activity, and no one seems to mind too much, as long as it doesn’t interfere with basketball.

And then he meets his new Captain, a boy with odd mismatched eyes, a boy who looks at him disdainfully instead of with jealous reverence when a pair of panties fall out of his locker (whoops!) during changing. Akashi doesn’t have the cute smile of most of his girlfriends, but he has an elegance, a grace, and a determination that put most of them to shame and leave _him_ as the one blushing like a schoolgirl, leave _him_ thinking all sorts of embarrassing things.

Ah, well.

Being a ladies’ man was fun while it lasted, he thinks.

 

 

**Challenge: Lights**

“Rejected.”

It’s a word he hears entirely too often, and Reo tries not to feel too hurt by it. After all, he knows he’s the one always pushing for this, pushing for more, pushing to be a part of Akashi’s life. Part of it is because he thinks Akashi needs someone, needs to be loved. 

Part of it is that he just _wants_ Akashi so bad he can hardly hear for all the pounding of his heart against his ribs sometimes.

So he tries not to push _too_ hard when they’re alone, though Akashi won’t let him get close tonight. He tries putting an arm around him, and is slapped. He tries leaning in to nuzzle, and is shoved away.

“Fine,” he sighs eventually, when the movie is nearly through. “I’ll be good.”

“Good. You’re awful.”

Reo reaches out a long arm and flicks off the light, resigning himself to at least being _close_ to Akashi.

Then, surprisingly, he feels the little point guard snuggle up to his side. He beams, putting an arm around him, and is rewarded with Akashi stuffing his face in Reo’s chest. “Sei-chan…”

“Mmph.”

What an odd little creature. Reo reaches out to turn on the light, and Akashi smacks him again, though he doesn’t pull away. “Lights out. Be good.”

“Do I have to be good with the lights out?” Reo asks, not quite daring to upset the equilibrium.

“….maybe.”

Good enough.

 

**Challenge: Conquest**

Mibuchi isn’t ever quite sure what to expect from Akashi. It’s because every time he thinks he knows what’s coming next, he winds up being wrong.

After they first spend the night together, he wears his school uniform zipped up all the way, no matter that he’s bursting with leftover affection and delight. Even if they hadn’t had sex, there are still marks left from such a thing (and they would have gone further had Mibuchi not been determined to preserve Sei-chan’s innocence for just a bit longer).

So it’s a surprise when he feels Akashi’s slender fingers snake around the front of his uniform, unbuttoning the first few buttons, turning down his collar to bare the marks on his neck. “Sei-chan, what—”

“Do you want to deny me the marks of my conquest?” Akashi asks, challenge in his oddly mismatched eyes.

Mibuchi is not going to cling to the rail for support. This Akashi isn’t quite as endearing as the one who’d climbed onto his lap asking for more kisses, but that forcefulness isn’t exactly off-putting, either.

He strips off his jacket instead, hanging it over his shoulder. “Never in a hundred years.”

 

**Challenge: Royalty**

Mibuchi understands, in a vague kind of way, that Akashi is rich. It doesn’t bother him. No one at Rakuzan is exactly poor, himself included.

He understands that Akashi has drivers, and that his father is someone powerful, and that he has a dismissive way of responding to problems with a wave of his hand that speaks of power, influence, and money more than anything.

He hadn’t _quite_ understood until now just how far that goes.

They take a field trip, and Akashi gets antsy. He slumps, as far as someone with his bearing can, and looks grumpy when they drive by the Diet. “I have been informed,” he says, annoyed, “that I’m not allowed to wait in the bus.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Mibuchi asks. 

Ten minutes later, he understands. They walk through on a tour, and officials--the ones with briefcases and names everyone knows and faces he’s seen on posters--stop to bow before continuing, as if nothing strange were happening. 

“Yo,” Kotarou says, frowning a little, “are you royalty or something?”

Mibuchi slaps him upside the head. “Be respectful,” he admonishes, that sweet smile belying something quite different underneath. “All that matters is that he’s our Emperor.”

Akashi doesn’t respond, but Mibuchi sees his back straighten slightly.

 

**Challenge: Shogi**

“Play shogi with me.”

It shouldn’t be that strange a request, except that Akashi doesn’t make requests. It’s a demand, obviously, and Mibuchi hates having to hesitate. “Ah, Sei-chan, I’m sorry,” he admits, scratching the back of his head, “but I actually don’t know how to play.”

“I know.” Akashi sits down across from him, pulling out a collapsible wooden board and a small leather bag of tiles. “You don’t have a shogi player’s eyes, but we’re going to fix that. These are yours, set them up like I’m setting mine up.”

Mibuchi obeys dutifully, even as he watches Akashi through the fall of his hair. “I’m not going to be good.”

“You’ll be fine. I want to play with someone in person. Shintarou’s absurd routines keep him too busy to be a reliable shogi companion online.”

Mibuchi gives up, and resigns himself to being utterly defeated at something else...except that Akashi isn’t cruel about his shogi victories. He doesn’t gloat. He isn’t very intense. Every time he wins, he explains carefully what Mibuchi has done wrong, and how to avoid it in the future.

And once, he almost smiles. “Don’t look at me like that, Reo. Why should I fear you beating me? I don’t fear the sun shining black for a day, either.”

It’s insulting, but kind of cute.

 

**Challenge: Kagami goes to Rakuzan**

His name is Kagami, and Mibuchi doesn’t like him at all.

He’s a new transfer, some American who’s transferred to Rakuzan this year, and Mibuchi doesn’t like his bad hair, or his stupid loud voice, or his crass way of speaking, or the way Akashi looks at him, or his cooking skills, or _the way Akashi looks at him_.

He’s absurdly easy to defeat, because it’s almost child’s play to lure him into fouls. It’s too easy, and not much fun, especially when Kagami retaliates even in practice games by jumping and dunking from frankly absurd distances. 

“Yes,” Akashi says, gold eye glittering as he watches Kagami sail inelegantly through the air, far too high for a Japanese man. “This will be a great victory for Rakuzan.”

Mibuchi doesn’t like Kagami Taiga at _all_.

 

**Challenge: Winner**

“Reo-nee, we want you to win!”

Mibuchi looks down at the girls with their love letters in hand, eyes shining as they try to hand them over. “We wrote you all of these, so you’ll definitely pull ahead in the school heartthrob competition! Reo-nee is the most beautiful!”

Reo beams, pleased and taken aback, always the gentleman. “Ah, but my lovelies, a good general never surpasses his Captain. Why don’t you be a dear and put these in Akashi’s ballot box instead?”

Their faces fall, and he darts a look at the green-eyed girls, scheming in the corner. He leans in conspiratorially, and whispers, “Actually, why not do me a little favor first?”

~

“I love Reo-nee so much,” one girl exclaims, hugging a letter to her breast on the way to the ballot boxes. “I’m going to vote for him three times!”

“Hanako-chan, that’s against the rules!” the other says, a bit too loud.

“I don’t care! He’s my favorite! It isn’t as if that _other_ boy’s team is going to play by the rules, so I’m definitely going to break them!”

Green eyes glitter, and narrow.

~

When the ballots are counted, no one but Reo and the girls are surprised to find that Akashi wins, startled at the apparent influx of votes. Another boy, black-haired and a bit shorter than himself, is immediately disqualified when duplicate letters are found in his box. 

“I did it for you!” a green-eyed girl howls as she’s led to the principle’s office. 

Mibuchi manages to wait until they’re out of high school, but just barely. It isn’t easy, with Akashi clinging to him, begging softly, wheedling, nipping at his ears and breathing soft words of encouragement, words so lewd he’d _never_ have imagined his lovely, cute little Sei-chan would even _know_ , much less…

But he waits, because he wants badly to believe that he’s a good person. He waits until Akashi graduates, is really an adult, before he lets the lithe young redhead climb him like a tree, wriggling into his lap and pulling his cock out like it’s the only thing he’s wanted for years. 

It’s really the only thing both of them have wanted for years, but Mibuchi has given up on trying to explain things like _morals_ to Akashi long ago.

 

**Challenge: Yakuza AU**

“Reo. Teach him a lesson.”

Mibuchi doesn’t argue with Akashi. No one does. It’s safer, and fewer of them get pumped full of bullets that way. 

This time, Akashi’s eye hadn’t shone with that _particular_ sheen that means _make sure he doesn’t come back_. No, this is to really be just a lesson, and Mibuchi takes that to heart.

“If you didn’t make him angry,” he says with a little smile, leading the sniveling idiot out back, “he wouldn’t need my skills.”

He’s good at almost letting them get away. He lets them crawl a few steps, always does, before stepping down on their backs. Akashi likes it that way, likes to be able to see the _struggle_.

Those foolish enough to cross the yakuza need lessons, of course. No one is foolish enough to think otherwise--and anyone foolish enough to cross Akashi Seijuurou needs more of a lesson than most.

 

**Challenge: Genderbend**

Sei-chan is SO cute.

Sometimes, Reo wishes there were a little less competition, but she supposes she can’t blame the boys. After all, Akashi Seikou is so adorable with her princess bangs, her S+ grade zettai ryouiki, and her little doll’s face that she was always going to be popular.

God, she hopes Sei-chan doesn’t like boys.

Still, the girl looks sweet, breakable, and not exactly the kind of thing Reo’s into...until they get on the court.

She plays basketball as hard as the rest of them, truly frightening when she gets her hands on the ball, and Reo’s heart flutters. Maybe she’s made a horrible mistake and she’s in a yuri manga, but suddenly the crowd of boys around Sei-chan doesn’t seem quite so charming.

It seems like a challenge.

 

 

**Challenge: Karaoke**

Mibuchi knows all the words.

Akashi likes knowledge, and he likes knowing that his friends are intelligent, but this is a bit much.

“Reo. Let someone else pick next.”

Mibuchi gracefully hands over the mike, and Kotarou picks a song. 

Mibuchi knows all the words.

Akashi narrows his eyes, and Mibuchi notices.

“Now, Sei-chan, there’s no reason to get jealous, this isn’t a competition—”

“I’m picking next.”

Mibuchi pretends not to know the words to this song. Akashi can see him mouthing them anyway.

At 3AM, he stares, transfixed, as the other members of Rakuzan fall slowly asleep as Mibuchi perfectly mouths every word to songs in four languages, shrugging helplessly. “I can’t play shogi, if that helps.”

Akashi glares. “It does.” 

Kind of.


End file.
